Starlight

XXIX: For Good

I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun

- 'For Good', Wicked

xx.xx

Keep your composure, Henry.

He breathed in a deep, cold lungful of the night air. It tasted clean, sharp. Different to the stuffy atmosphere of his rooms. He barely left the house after all, let alone at dusk; the darkness held hidden dangers that he daren't expose himself to. No, he would only leave the house at night if it was a life or death situation.

Like on New Year's, when he told Robbie how he felt about her.

Or when she performed.

Or the night they had met, when he decided not to retreat into the safety of his home, just so that he could go to dinner with her.

She made every day feel like a life or death situation: Robbie had shown Henry a new way of life, and without her, he was sure that some small, vulnerable part of him would die. After all, she could make those dangers in his head disappear with little more than a bad pun.

He closed his eyes tight, leaning against the front of his house. He wanted to smoke. He wanted to shout, yes, he wanted to shout into that night air; mad, sad ramblings that would only be heard by him and the stars... and maybe Alexa.

But he needed to keep his composure for Robbie's sake.

Slowly, cautiously, the front door opened next to him. She sidled out through it, wringing her small hands, slight shoulders sloping downward.

She seemed to have diminished somehow. She had never been the tallest of women at five feet tall, but the way her voice rang out across a crowd, the laughter she coaxed out of people, the way she cared for him, the way he made her feel... to Henry, Robbie was the most glaringly obvious, bright and shining thing in any room she was in.

Now that light had been dulled somewhat. "Henry," She nearly whispered, voice timorous and thin. "Have they gone?"

He nodded. He'd watched Linda's expensive car disappear over the horizon, off to some rich and elegant part of Hatchetfield he'd likely never see.

"How long do you think we have?"

The Professor sighed a long, weary sigh, reclining his head against the wall to feel more of the cool air on his face. "It'll be too late tonight, so we're okay for now. But I think they'll start watching us tomorrow."

"Alright." Robbie hugged her own body for warmth.

"You should head back inside," Henry told her, noting the goosebumps forming on her pale, bare arms. "I'll be there in a minute."

"I'm fine, I'm not that cold," her voice broke a little, almost sliding into tears.

Henry wanted to lunge forward and scoop her into the tightest embrace she'd ever felt, crushingly close and gently romantic all at once, but he couldn't.

If he did, he might never let go. Before tomorrow came, that's exactly what they would both have to do.

"Hey," he tried to stop his own voice from wavering. "We should make the most of the time we have."

Robbie let the frigid air fill her own lungs, breathing as deeply as she could despite her shaking. "The time we have?" She repeated, turning to him and looking him dead in the eye. "We have one night, Henry. I wanted years."

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out: he resigned himself to just looking at her, quietly taking note of each little detail before they were gone from his life forever.